


Whoops!  Wrong Army!

by Crayshack



Category: Total War Series (Video Games)
Genre: Empire, Gen, after action report
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24173647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crayshack/pseuds/Crayshack
Summary: A good general will know the right forces to engage with.  A great general will know the right time to engage.  It is entirely possible to be the latter and not the former.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	Whoops!  Wrong Army!

Jarle Vik, the great Swedish general, sat proudly on his horse deep in the Thar Desert. He was riding a bit south of the Swedish holdings in Punjab as he tried to find the best path through the desert to march his men and, God willing, finally break the Marathi forces. 

The war between the Swedish Empire and the Maratha Confederacy had been a long and bloody. Some historians classified it as a series of small wars, but most considered it one long conflict that simply had its ceasefires for a few years every so often. The tensions had started when the Marathas had landed an army in Northern Norway and tried to march south to Stockholm. That invasion had been easily dealt with, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of the Swedish people.

For a Time, Sweden had been careful to maintain a series of buffer states between their borders and the borders of the Maratha Confederacy made out of the remnants of the Tsardom of Russia and the Ottoman Empire. However, when the Marathas started to aggressively invade these territories, Sweden had no choice but to invade for themselves and force the border as far away from their heartland as they could.

From that point on, the Maratha Confederacy would consistently invade the Swedish Empire. Sweden would of course respond by invading back and claiming as much territory as was needed to force the Marathas to the peace table. But, it was too late for that now. Despite their army being nearly depleted, the Marathas still kept breaking the peace treaties and attacking. Sweden would now not rest until the Maratha Confederacy was no more and the India subcontinent was simply another province of the _S_ _tormaktstiden_.

General Vik was roused from his thoughts when a scout came riding up to him. “Sir!” he reported, giving a quick salute, “We have spotted a small Marathi force 20 km to west. They appear to be without any reinforcements.”

“Excellent!” Cried General Vik, “The Maratha are at their most dangerous when they are in large groups. A small force we can cut to shreds easily. Every man we can kill or capture there will be one less we have to face in a large army.” He turned to his Aide-de-Camp and asked him “Where is our nearest force.”

“They are camped at Jalor about 5 km east of here.” Came the prompt response.

“We ride for their camp at once!” Declared the General. When he arrived at the camp, he did not hesitate before finding the General in charge of this Crops, Olov Johannesson, and ordering him to make his men ready to march at once. The day was not yet over when the Swedish force came within sight of the Marathas.

“This is good ground,” mused General Vik. Turning to the General Johannesson, he said “Place your artillery on that ridge. We shall give them hell from afar and make them come to us.”

The man paused before he hesitantly replied, “Sir, we don’t have any artillery.”

“What!” Said General Vik. That was preposterous. The Imperial Swedish Army kept an identical compliment of mixed arms in almost every single Corps so that they could be flexible enough to deal with any situation placed before them and operate without support if needed. The only exceptions were a pair of Corps stationed in the Caribbean with limited supplies and… Oh no.

Unaware of the thoughts in the mind of General Vik, General Johannesson continued. “This is the First Reserve Corps, sir. We only have infantry.”

Though its name might seem unglamorous, the First Reserve Corps filled a vital role in the Swedish Army. They would garrison fortresses and towns near the front and cause even the most aggressive attacking forces to be unable to take territory already claimed by the Swedish Army. When the Army marched forward, the First Reserve Corp would march behind them and supply fresh regiments of infantry to any Corps that took an unfortunate level of casualties. While they had been deployed offensively against small bands of raiders in the past, they had never fought an offensive battle against any force of significant size. The lack of artillery and cavalry was simply too limiting.

General Vik eloquently responded to this revelation with the dignified comment of “Oh Fuck! I attacked with the wrong Army!”

“Should we withdraw and attack with a better equipped force, sir?”

“No, we cannot give the Marathas time to get behind our lines. We must fight them now. Form your men into the line of battle and march them forward.”

The Swedes were well drilled and even such a horrendous mistake by their general did not break their spirit. They quickly formed a line and began marching forward. As they began marching, General Vik spotted a Marathi artillery battery on the far ridge. It was not yet set up, but should it be allowed to, it could be devastating on his forces.

The General sent a runner for the brigade on the left flank immediately with the order “You are the cavalry now. Charge for the guns!” Normally, cavalry was used to intercept isolated artillery batteries due to their great speed, but in the absence of any cavalry, men on foot would have to do. It was a testament to the discipline of the men that they did not hesitate with the strange order and began running at a doubled pace.

The rest of the men calmly march forward until they were within musket range of the Marathas. The center of the line stopped and began firing while the flanks kept marching to envelope the enemy force. This was standard tactics for dealing with an isolated regiment hammering the main line where artillery could not hit, but it had never been done at this scale before. General Vik was pleased to see that his men could adapt so well to the strange circumstance.

His pride was shaken when he heard an awful trumpeting noise. This was not the trumpeting of any infantry bugler, but a sound associated with the bodyguards of the Marathi generals. Most nations had their general ride atop the finest horses their territory could provide, but while India did have some excellent horses, the Maratha choose to mount their generals on something different. Elephants.

The battle cry of the large beasts could be heard from clear across the battlefield and they ran for the Swedish line. The normal protocol for dealing with Marathi generals or other elephant units was to priority target them with artillery or harass them with light dragoons. Infantry could only hope to get off one or two volleys before the elephants would be upon them. With this in mind, General Vik gave the only order he could.

“Stab the elephants!” He cried, “Fix bayonets and counter charge them. Not a single regiment, the entire brigade! Everyone run in and stab the elephants!” He would later explain to his Aide-de-Camp that this was the best tactical decision to make. Elephants, while scary, were not well disciplined and would route quickly when confronted with a horde of angry men with sharp objects. However, in the heat of battle he had lost the ability to clearly explain himself.

With the elephants routed and the Marathi General Killed, it was a simple matter to fully box in the Bargir Infantry and hammer them with musket fire until they to routed. Finding themselves nowhere to run to, all of them were either captured or put to the bayonet. Looking up the ridge, General Vik found that his “cavalry” had been successful with minimal casualties and the guns were no longer in Marathi hands. The day was won, and with only a couple hundred Swedes out of thousands dead. 

However, General Vik knew that it was more than they should have lost if he had taken the time to ensure that he hadn’t commanded the only Corps in all of India ill equipped for the battle to attack. He hoped that when he reported back to Stockholm, his success in compensating for his mistake and claiming a victory anyway would make up for his errors in the eyes of the Queen.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my hard drive for a while and I figured it might be worth posting. It was the result of some slight inattention/miss click while playing that was amusing enough to turn into a narrative. Many of the more ridiculous lines were things I actually said out loud while playing the battle.
> 
> From a strict gameplay standpoint, when I play Total War I like to establish a set combined arms loadout for all of my armies. The idea is that any given army can handle any given foe. It does lock me into a lack of flexibility from a tactical standpoint, but the interchangeable nature of the stacks gives me a lot of flexibility at an operational level. However, in this campaign there was one major exception. To avoid having to march fresh infantry units all the way across the map, I kept a stack of infantry as a reserve. This I could use to quickly swap out damaged regiments to heal while keeping my combat stacks at full strength and possibly act as a reinforcing army for larger battle. It was never designed to operate as a frontline stack on its own and yet my stupid ass made it happen.
> 
> Concrit preferred.


End file.
